


Lie a Little While Here More

by Jinnism



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:45:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4087459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinnism/pseuds/Jinnism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is pink-cheeked, wind-swept hair and cheeky winks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lie a Little While Here More

**Author's Note:**

> " And you love him. You love him. "
> 
> \--
> 
> A Harry POV.
> 
> This was supposed to be tumblr-friendly ficlet which meant short and shorter. Then this happened instead. I'm so sorry.
> 
> Criticism and comments are very much welcome. Not brit-picked and definitely self-betaed and as such responsible for all mistakes made!

He is pink-cheeked, wind-swept hair and cheeky winks.

This Harry notices the first time both of them are back out in the field _together._ There are henchmen flooding into the hall from both sides and neither of them have enough ammo to shoot their way out.

“Eggsy,” He says crouched behind a pillar, and across him, behind another pillar as well, he meets Harry’s eyes. Sends him a wink as if Eggsy knows what he is to say next. An outright refusal to listen.

Then his oxfords are clacking sharp on the marble floor and his reloaded gun is firing away, effortless. Graceful, Harry thinks to himself as his limbs move on autopilot, and his eyes track Eggsy’s limber movement, the way his arm curls around another man’s throat and _twist_ just so.

Harry thinks he could sit and watch all day. 

Then a nameless person staggers up from behind and Harry ends up jamming his elbow in the man’s guts on reflex. Sends his head cracking on the butt of Harry’s gun. He gives an ugly grunt of pain, and drops like a swatted fly. Harry watch him slip into unconsciousness, disinterested.

When he looks up, he finds Eggsy staring at him. A little pink-cheeked, a little curve upwards curve to his mouth, his hair in disarray.

“Harry-” He says, and it’s like a light bulb flips on in Harry’s mind. No eureka moment, no surprise and Harry finds himself about to answer- 

The heat reaches both of them first, and Harry hears the window panes shatter, glass cracking and crackling-

The world tilts sideways and the ground is no longer beneath his feet, the force throwing him backwards.

Harry doesn’t remember what comes next. Except he wakes up to the whitewashed walls of the medical bay and on his right in another bed, Eggsy sleeps on, equally as bandaged and looking worse for wear.

He is alive. It is the only thought Harry holds to in that moment.

 

* * *

 

He is youth; too reckless, too eager to jump off buildings and too hesitant to pull the trigger.

“Shoot,” Merlin grounds out through the line, “Eggsy you need to fuckin shoot--” and from where Harry stands, two paces behind Merlin and watching with what Harry knows is an impassive expression, finds his heart thundering under his sternum.

“I can’t, bruv--” Eggsy says, and Harry can hear the distress in his voice. This must be what he’d gone through when the previous Arthur had told him to shoot his dog. “She’s just a kid. I didn’t sign up for this to kill a kid, Merlin-”

“Eggsy, she’s a spy. They make them young these days.” Merlin replies, and his hands are now flying across the keyboards, his mouth set in a grim line. “Eggsy, your window of time is getting shorter. I can’t hold them back any longer- “

“No-” Eggsy’s voice is now a tremor, a hurried unsure pitch. 

“Don’t be stupid Eggsy. She’ll kill you if you don’t--” And Harry places a hand on Merlin’s shoulder, stopping him mid-sentence.

“Eggsy,” Harry says, and hates how his voice doesn’t shake - a toneless inflection - how he feels nothing like Eggsy who still has so much to give, who hasn’t yet packed his conscience into a box and shoved it into an unvisited corner, who isn’t jaded. Harry hates what he will say, knowing Eggsy will follow. The knowledge that Eggsy trusts him enough not to abuse the authority he’s allowed Harry to have over him heavy on Harry’s shoulders. “Take the shot.”

All he hears is Eggsy’s breath. A stuttering exhale. 

“Noted, Arthur,” He says then, flat and professional.

The sound of the bullet entering flesh and bone is a sickening sound, but one of familiarity.

Eggsy doesn’t meet his eye for the next few weeks. It is expected. Harry signs his consent on every mission request form with Eggsy name on the top of it, almost consecutively now, and tells himself to give Eggsy time.

He is young, and the boy must learn eventually.

 

* * *

 

He is courageous; Harry’s seen him go up against an army of men without flinching, watched him on the last leg of his life - corralled in with no place to go - pick up a gun with arms that tremble from over-exertion and shoot. The expression on his face one of determination, one of spirit yet unbroken.

He’s got guts, Harry thinks amused as he watches Eggsy march up to Merlin and complains outright to his friend, indignation bleeding into his voice.

“C’mon Merlin,” Harry hears Eggsy from where he is stands watching in the doorway, “What’s this?” Eggsy thrust a pair of what Harry expects are the latest innovations from their tech branch into Merlin’s face and Harry watches as his best friend flounders a brief second in the face of Eggsy’s anger, however impeccably put-together he looks on the outside. “Were your lackeys trying to kill me, bruv? They died halfway while I was climbing a fuckin tower, ran out of juice-’

Harry can see a tic building in Merlin’s jaw.

“Do you blokes do no quality control-” Eggsy continues on, his voice climbing an octave higher, completely oblivious to how dark Merlin’s expression has become. “And I thought we were over this-” He stops, pauses and stares back down at the gloves in his hands.

“I thought we were bros, Merlin,” Eggsy says finally, remotely despondent and drops them on Merlin’s desk. Harry watches the moment Merlin registers that comment, his expression slipping into incredulity, jaw fractionally dropping, before the man blinks it away. By then, Eggsy has already shuffled away, dejected.

Eggsy has _balls,_ Harry admits to himself and stifles the laughter that’s bubbling up.

 

* * *

 

He is the nights Harry will stay up late watching the monitor, and the nights Harry will spend awake completely worried and heartsick.

This Harry finds out too late. 

“Eggsy’s gone dark,” Merlin reports, and Harry hums, not looking up from all the paperwork he’s been busy with since the Croatia incident where Roxy had been a little too trigger happy on the explosives-

_What._

“Merlin-” He says, finding he cannot breathe, that all the air has left the room and his chest has constricted painfully.

 _Eggsy’s gone dark._ The words are loud and jarring in the immediate silence.

Harry drops his pen in an uncharacteristic fumble.  _Eggsy’s gone dark._  But Harry’s sent him on a milkrun in Hong Kong, simple recon, and Harry racks through his memory, frantically sifting through information- was there something he’d missed- was the source of intel confirmed-

Then there is a hand on his shoulder. Merlin's touch pressing down and grounding. The air rushes back in, quick and heady and Harry sucks in a dizzying and deep lungful of it, his heart jackrabbiting in its cage. The pressure in his chest disappearing like a valve has been turned to release.

“He’ll be alright,” Merlin says, having moved to Harry's side. And Harry feels a lurch of gratefulness for the amount of conviction he finds in his friend’s voice. It is what he latches onto and blinking, chest heaving, shakes off the growing worries and what-ifs clouding his mind. 

Enough, he tells himself, reprimanding and finds the words.

“Walk me through it, Merlin.” He says.

 

* * *

 

They find Eggsy two weeks later. Two weeks later than Harry would like, two weeks longer than Harry has ever gone without knowing where Eggsy is. And that two weeks had been hell, had been torture.

“Never leave me again,” Harry says to a sedated Eggsy, knowing he cannot hear the words. Men should never make promises in the face of their fear of death. Men in their line of work should never make promises at all. Harry knows they are sure to break them. 

His voice holds only till before the last note, where it cracks.

 

* * *

 

Eggsy is brilliant.  

He is the days suddenly so brimming with colour, it nearly strikes Harry blind the first few times and Harry wonders where along the line he has allowed his world to go dark, to go grey, to fall into such monotony. He wonders how he has missed this. The redness of the setting sun from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai - the purity of the first fall of snow in Korea - the moment when London’s eternal smog parts; just a tiny bit, for the sun and the blue, blue sky to flash its teeth at you - the winding spreading greens of the moors.

He wonders how he has missed the grey-green-brown of Eggsy’s irises. How they are grey as the clouds which hang over London’s airspace when he is sad, how they are brown and the warmest when he is happy, how they are tinged slightly green when slanted beams of light hit them.

Eggsy’s smile is bright. Harry wonders if this was how he’d felt as a kid watching the first glimmer of a rainbow forming on the horizon -  thrilled and utterly breathless.

 

* * *

 

Look ‘Arry, “ Eggsy says, pointing fondly to a flock of retreating gulls caught between the far-reaching horizons of the shimmering sea and shore. It draws Harry’s attention to Eggsy's pale arm. He can see the flowing web-work of veins beneath skin presented to him and Harry wonders how it would feel to sink his teeth into them-

_Oh._

It hits him fierce and sharp. An aching surge of  _want,_ this  _lurch_ of something deeper and so potent, so immediate. Blindsides him momentarily with the weight of it. And Harry  _wants,_ he realises. Wants to press kisses to the pale and delicate spindly lines, wants to watch bruises bloom on that expanse of skin, wants to mark Eggsy as his-

"Yes, Eggsy,” is all he says, nodding his head in assent, stamping down the urges that have roared up, the sound of waves distant to the rush of blood in his ears. “They do make quite sight, don’t they?”

Besides him, Eggsy just laughs, a carefree chuckle and throws his head back, exposing the long line of his throat. Harry wants to nip at the tender skin there. He watches as Eggsy stretches, bare toes digging into the soft sand, and the sight makes Harry marvel at how so easily pleased the boy is.

"As do we," Eggsy says once he has settled back down, long and golden under the London's pale sunlight, a slight movement of his head to indicate the both of them, a jut of his chin. Implying and Harry thinks that he may be right about the sight the pair of them must make.

An old man dressed in a work suit and a young man in a floral printed shirt with matching pants together at the beach, sitting on an ugly checkered straw mat. Watching the waves crash into the shoreline. An oddity, Harry supposes.

"It would seem that way," he says in agreement, "However, a little forewarning would be much appreciated the next time we end up on one of your impromptu trips, Eggsy."

"Isn't spontaneity charming or some shit?" Eggsy comments, and freezes the second the implication of Harry's words sink in."Wait, 'Arry," he says, a flurry of limbs as he struggles to prop himself up to send Harry a disbelieving look. His brow wrinkles adorably. "Does that mean there's a  _next time?"_   

Harry hums. He spares their attempt - a little lacking on the props - at normalcy a glance, looking around. There is the sea - salt carried by the damp sea breeze which is bound to seep into the fabric of his suit, dragged as he was from HQ by an unrelenting Eggsy, and turn it stiff, a monster to wash out and there is the sand that has wormed its way into his shoes. Which unlike Eggsy’s pair of slippers that have been kicked to the side, will need tending too.

And yet, against all odds and discomfort, Harry realises he isn't the slightest fazed by their unusual arrangement, isn't the least bothered by how ungentlemanly he must be in the picture he currently projects. In fact, Harry is in this moment - close enough as he is to Eggsy to feel the heat radiating of his skin - undoubtedly and unquestionably content.

"Perhaps," He does eventually say, when he notices Eggsy still earnestly waiting for an answer, and leans back, perfectly at ease. Relishes in the smile he sees take hold of Eggsy's features. 

 

* * *

 

He is a moment in time Harry has lost and has had the fortune to earn back.

The smiles, the grins, the stolen moments spent night after night in the medical bay, holding vigil by Eggsy’s side, the pride suffusing him to watch as Eggsy exceeds every expectation Harry has, cross every bar that has been long set by leaps and bounds, create new yardsticks.

 

* * *

 

He is a lesson one that never fails to surprise Harry, one that gives and gives and never punishes. 

“’Arry,” Eggsy says, and Harry, after a successful hundredth mission last month, can now pinpoint the tone of his as fond and slightly exasperated. “You’ve been feeding JB again haven’t you?”

“No, Eggsy,” Harry says, reaching for two eggs and cracking them open over a heated pan. They’re having breakfast at Harry’s house, where every roundtable Kingsmen agent including Merlin has been camped out for the past week after HQ took a bombing. 

“Is that so?” Eggsy prods. Harry turns to the direction of his voice and finds the boy seated backwards in a chair, chin propped up on his crossed arms - a thoughtful expression on his face - with JB lounging by his feet. “Look,” Eggsy shoots a sideways glance at the pug, “ I swear the dog’s grown _fatter,_  ‘Arry _._ And I ain’t been the one feeding him all the  _extra_ kip.”

“Well, Eggsy,” Harry says and turns back to check on the eggs. “Have you asked the other agents about it?”

The suggestion is met with silence. Then:

“You’re fuckin’ brilliant, luv,” Eggsy exclaims to which Harry positively does not preen to. He hears the scrape of the chair’s legs on the floor and Eggsy’s retreating footsteps.

A wet snout nudges at his shins moments later, and Harry looks down, greeted by the sight of JB look mournfully back up at him. He stares at the pug. And the pug stares back. 

Harry sighs defeat after a total of fifteen seconds - he can almost hear Merlin’s choking laughter at him doting on a pug -  and reaches for a piece of bacon, dropping it into JB’s waiting and eager open maw.

“Not a word to Eggsy,” Harry tells the pug. JB barks enthusiastically in response. He takes that as agreement.

 

* * *

 

“Eggsy,” Harry says, the wall beneath his back painfully digging into his spine and his suit ruined. The alley Eggsy has pulled both of them into is dark and sheltered, the noise from the street a mild hum a distance away. His breath is on Harry’s neck, and there are his hands framing Harry’s face.

Harry should push him away. He should chide him gently for his lapse in manners. He should not allow him to make this mistake. Should not allow Eggsy to ruin what he has so viciously fought to nurture and keep between the both of them; a working relationship punctuated by professionalism. Should not.

Harry blinks against the stars, already light-headed from blood loss, red liquid seeping thick from the wound in his abdomen. He thinks about how terribly young Eggsy is. How Eggsy shouldn’t need to bother himself with someone like Harry; past his prime and already so set in his ways, too much red on his ledger.

He hates how he can still find hope pressing on the tip of his tongue, heavy and dry and terrible. Damning. 

“What do you want, Eggsy?” Harry chooses to say instead, every part of his locked stiffly, bracing for the eventual rejection, the soft let down.

He startles when there is a gentle press of a kiss to the skin above the collar of his shirt, on the skin of his neck. “That,” Eggsy says, and every part of Harry that has tensed, that has turned to ice, warms in that instant.

The answer to his question resounds deep in his bones, clear. Dissonant and waking and alive. 

Harry draws in a deep breath, and lets it out, cleansing.

“This,” Eggsy says again, whispering the words like he's afraid of disturbing the moment. And when Harry doesn’t push him away, Eggsy reiterates the sentiment with another kiss. It makes him feel the sensation of falling, swooping low in his guts.

It also grants Harry a moments of clarity to take stock of both of them.

There is still time to say no, he realises, and he really should make the boy step back, tell him to reconsider.

But then Eggsy is looking up, eyes black under the dim lamp light, staring back at him with an honest, raw expression. Vulnerable. It makes something tender pinch beneath his ribs.  _Fuck it,_  he thinks, shoving all reasoning down the gutter, and brings his arms up and around the boy. He cradles Eggsy as the boy curls into him; a lethal and deadly creature shifting in his arms.

"Is that so," Harry says muffled into Eggsy’s hair, a little lost for words. Inhaling, he traces the line of Eggsy's temple with his nose, taking in the smell of gunpowder and the scent of Eggsy’s sweat. Eggsy shudders once before he looks up, away from where he has buried his face in Harry’s neck and cocks his head at Harry, a flat look on his face.

It holds for a good second. Then, the both of them are laughing, shaking in each other’s arms, clutching at each other tightly.

“Bloody  _cock_ ,” Eggsy manages, quaking hard, “You’re such a fuc- fuckin  _wanker,_  Harry _.”_

“Well,” Harry says, breathless and exhilarated all at once, heat flooding his guts and coiled like a lazy cat there, “You chose your moment.” and winces at the jolt of pain lancing through his side. 

“Fuck,” Eggsy curses suddenly and pulls back, eyes darting to Harry’s forgotten wound. “Shit, Harry, I totally forgot-” He’s moves to draw away now, but Harry doesn’t want that.

“Stay,” Harry says, tightening his hold even if it makes the pain flare back up, effectively halting Eggsy’s protest, “Merlin’s been notified. Evac’s on its way.” The reassurance falls short of its intended effect. Eggsy who is now trapped in the circle of his arms only starts to shake harder, rubbing at his eyes with the back of a freed hand. Harry sighs.

“My boy,” He says, stilling Eggsy’s hand and giving it a slight tug. Eggsy puts up no resistance. Allows Harry to gently pull it away, revealing red-rimmed eyes that are slightly wet. Harry thumbs away the moisture with one hand, and strokes down Eggsy’s flank soothingly, chasing away the minute trembles. “Everything is fine.”

He cups Eggsy’s face with both hands, and meets Eggsy’s gaze with intent.

“Darling boy,” Harry says, resting his forehead to Eggsy’s. He is warm, Harry thinks to himself, no longer surprised by how casually his boy continues to surprise him and allows the moment to shroud them completely. “I’m so proud of you.” 

Let’s the words sink in.

 

* * *

 

"Eggsy," Harry Hart says, in a place seemingly lifetimes ago. This Harry Hart is younger. This Harry Hart still sees reason in making amends. As he crouches down in front of a little kid playing in a corner with a snowglobe, this Harry Hart finds he has a great deal of things to say. But none of them are things that go -  _you are the person I will love and get to keep_ or _you kept your faith in me even when all else failed_ or _the world is a lovelier place with you in it_ or any sort of romantic, sappy declarations, because instead, this Harry Hart says, "Won't you keep this for me?"

Twenty years later, the same Harry Hart who has seen enough of the world and not nearly enough of its better days, who has been sandpapered down by age and time and experience into a sum of crude, vicious and equally unsympathetic parts, who has been living on a day-to-day counter, who has challenged death uncaring and reckless mission after mission, who has lived thinking he has seen it all, looks at one Gary 'Eggsy' Unwin and realises he hasn't.

He kisses the long curve of Eggsy's spine, leonine in display, illuminated by the faint outside light. And thinking of all the things he has learned from this willful, wonderful boy, grateful for every coincidence that has brought them here, for the medal being in Eggsy's possession for so long, for his persistence and for his determination, for the complete trust he places in Harry, for the love he so willingly gives, Harry says, whispers it into every inch of skin he can find, " _Thank you,"_ and means it with every fiber of his being.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr : [jinnism](http://www.jinnism.tumblr.com)


End file.
